A Girl of No Consequence
by throughthedarkersideofthings
Summary: What if James and Lily Potter had a daughter before they had a son? What would change if James and Lily had lived and Harry Potter was declared the Chosen One? What would life be like as the forgotten Potter sibling? As she begins school a year late, Eathelen Sophia Potter finds her own way as she always has. Features Ravenclaw MC, WrongChildWhoLived & Not Nice!Dumbledore.
1. October 12, 1980-October 31, 1981

_**Thanks to my beta Like Broken Glass for making this possible. Please tell me what you think!**_

* * *

**Chapter One:**

**_October 12, 1980-October 31, 1981_**

On October 12th, 1980 Lily and James Potter welcomed a lovely little girl into the world. She didn't cry as she was born, only letting out a sharp shriek when the midwife grabbed her uncomfortably. James and Lily thought long and hard about the name of their first child. They had always wanted many; James had always felt somewhat empty, being an only child, and Lily had never really had a sister in Petunia once she began displaying her magical powers. While James wanted all their names to be traditional like his (William, Lucy, Joseph, Anne, and so on) Lily wanted special names for her children – something one-of-a-kind.

They compromised and decided that Lily should name their daughters and James should name their sons. Therefore, after almost three hours of discussion, the still-not-crying little girl was named Eathelen Sophia Potter.

Nine months later, the Potters had a baby boy.

His birth was much longer and more difficult than Eathelen's, and the little boy – much larger than his sister had been – screamed constantly as he was cleaned and fussed over until he was in his mother's arms. He was quickly proclaimed to be a Harry James by both his mother and his father.

"_He looks just like a Harry!_" everyone said. Lily and James's friends all gathered into the bedroom to see him, even Alice and Frank Longbottom, whose own little boy had been born just a day before.

When Eathelen was introduced to her little brother, she said with a smile, "Hello, baby."

She was only nine months old, but she knew four words: _Mum_, _Dad_, _Hello_, and _Baby_. When Harry simply stared up at her, Eathelen grew frustrated and huffed, crossing her arms and giving her mother and father a '_What is this thing supposed to do anyway?_' look.

"Sweetheart, Harry doesn't know how to speak yet!" Lily had said. "Look, try letting him grasp your finger like this…"

But at that moment Harry had screamed, demanding his first meal, and the focus in the room was back on the small boy. Eathelen crawled off, unhindered by the adults, to find something _interesting _to do.

The Potters already knew of the prophecy concerning their small son; they had heard it from Albus Dumbledore the day Lily's due date was discovered:

_"The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches ... born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies ... and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not ... and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives ... the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies ..."_

Not three months after Harry's birth, the small family's home on Godric's Hollow was attacked, despite the layers upon layers of protective wards and even the Fidelius Charm placed upon it.

Harry was being nursed for the last time before bed by his mother on the sofa, and Eathelen was being read to by her father. All was quiet and peaceful until with a BANG, the red door was blown in.

James immediately jumped up, his wand ready.

"Lily, take the kids and run! It's him!" he roared, sending an easily blocked curse at the hooded figure, but blocking the one thrown at him just as easily. "I'll hold him off!"

Lily scooped Eathelen up in her arms and ran up the stairs with her and Harry securely pressed to her chest. Eathelen held tight to her mother, breathing heavily with fear, and Harry began to cry quietly.

As the fight continued downstairs, Lily slammed the door to Harry's room and locked it, knowing how futile the action was but unable to help herself. Desperately she tried to remember the spell that would allow temporary Disapparation from her home. It was a spell she hadn't thought she would need – the Fidelius Charm was supposed to be foolproof!

Downstairs, James glared at Lord Voldemort, hoping to buy his wife and children time to escape, but Voldemort wouldn't allow this. With a swish of the Dark Lord's wand, James was thrown into the wall and slid to the floor, unconscious. Certainly it would have been just as easy to kill the man, but Voldemort wanted James and Lily to live. He wanted them to wake up to the corpses of their children and know the price for defying him.

Blowing open the door to the quaint children's nursery, he ignored Lily's cries of '_Please, not my baby!'_ and threw her into the wall just as he had with her husband. The boy, his targeted child, was already in his little blue crib, while Lily Potter had been holding the older one, the girl, when she was knocked out. Now the child was on the floor beside her mother, shaking the woman's limp arm in an attempt to wake her and gazing fearfully at the snake-like man before her. Voldemort laughed and turned his wand on the boy – _Harry Potter_. It was hard to believe that this wailing brat was supposed to one day defeat him, but Voldemort wouldn't take a prophecy lightly.

He didn't see the small girl desperately digging through her mother's pockets, trying to find her wand. Of course, Eathelen was far too young to use it, but she knew that if you pointed it and said funny words, things could happen – like when her mother fell down. She figured that if she pointed the right end at the cloaked man and said the right words, she could stop him.

However, she didn't find it in time. The Dark Lord said the words of the killing spell, and everything went white. There were three screams – a shout from the Dark Lord as his body was destroyed and his powers stripped, a cry of pain from Harry as a small scar cut into his forehead, and a louder, longer scream from Eathelen as she was scarred as well, even more so than her brother.

When James and Lily came to, they found an unconscious Eathelen and a sobbing Harry. Dumbledore arrived soon after, examined Harry, and proclaimed that he had defeated Lord Voldemort. While both Harry and Eathelen would have their scars forever, only Harry's was properly examined. It was a shallow, lightning-bolt shaped cut.

His sister's, however, ran from the right side of her neck all the way down her stomach, traveling partway down her back and all over her left arm to the tips of her fingers. Muggles would call it a Lichtenberg Figure, a red-ish stain appearing after a lightning strike and usually disappearing in a matter of days. However, Eathelen's would never disappear, and it was not a normal scar either. However, not even she noticed how it glowed when she was hurt, angry, or scared. She never guessed it was the cause of her slightly heightened magical abilities – or at least she wouldn't for several years.

No one ever thought that that scar would save both her life and her brother's one day. No one guessed that, perhaps, Harry Potter had not defeated the Dark Lord.

No one supposed that the girl who lived at Potter manor, the oldest child and the unknown one, the future Ravenclaw and Peacemaker, the _girl of no consequence_, would ever save the world.


	2. July 25th, 1989

**Chapter Two:**

_Eathelen was five, and she was listening at the door to her father's study. He was in a meeting with Albus Dumbledore and the Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge. Very important, very secret – so naturally Eathelen had to know. James had just stepped out to fetch some tea at Dumbledore's suggestion, and this prompted the young girl to climb out of the potted plan she had been hiding in, in order to hear better._

_"But what about the girl…Harry's sister, what's-her-name… Eathelen?" Fudge was saying. The said girl's eyes widened._

_"Oh, I suggested sending her to her aunt and uncle's home to give Harry more individual time, but Lily and James wouldn't hear of it." Dumbledore replied. "But don't worry, she's of no consequence. She won't cause any problems for us."_

* * *

**_July 25th, 1989_**

It was very early in the morning, and if you were a fly zooming through Potter Mansion, you might pass two sleeping adults in a giant red master bedroom, and then a snoring little boy in a red and yellow room covered with toys.

However, if you chanced a look in the only room that wasn't covered with scarlet and gold, you might just see a young girl of about nine ("_Ten in three months,_" she'd say if you asked her), the only one in the house up at such an hour, other than the house elves.

All the rooms in the Potter Mansion were done with great intricacy and care, most of them finished decades ago and simply updated with the times or changed around a bit to suite whomever lived there – thanks to magic, having a room one loved was easy, and the small girl sitting on the floor in her room did love the place she spent most of her time, even if the rest of the house was not to her taste.

The trim on the intricately carved vaulted ceilings was bronze colored, unlike the gold in nearly every other room in the home. The walls were painted blue, with white-wash patterns of butterflies and flowers every now and then. The bedding on the four-poster bed was midnight blue with gray trim, while the curtains around it were slate blue and the bed and headboard were painted bronze. A table at the foot of the bed with dark cherry legs and a marble top held an old vase filled with flowers, and nightstands on either side of the bed had lamps for when the child read late into the night or early in the morning. To the left of the bed, if you were facing it, was a tall bronze door leading to the rest of the home, but covering the wall to the left of it was a bookshelf that reached to the molding on the ceilings and stretched from the door to the end of the wall. It was filled with hundreds of books, nearly all of them lovingly worn, the leather soft, the pages casually ruffled – nothing too dusty nor too crinkled.

The floor was dark cherry, but a lovely oriental carpet done in mostly gray, blue, and bronze covered the floor from the end of the bed to the desk, which sat right across from the bed, behind a set of armchairs, facing the window. It was cherry like the floor, covered with quills and ink bottles and scrolls and books and notes and phials and a small cauldron. The seat matched the desk, but held soft blue cushions and was more comfortable than it looked.

There were four windows besides the one the desk faced; two were on either side of it, both with lovely silk blue window seats embroidered with bronze thread, and two on the wall across from the door, hung with blue paisley curtains. In between the two windows was a claw-footed storage chest with a straight backed chair beside it. The two armchairs across from the bed were midnight blue like the sheets, with a table in the middle of them and a lamp behind.

The most impressive feature of the room, possibly, was that one of the bookshelves opened out to reveal a closet full of girly clothes, several of which the child sitting on the floor hated.

Her name was Eathelen Sophia Potter, and before her lay three books, all open. They were all about magical water plants; Eathelen was comparing each author's description of Gillyweed. She thought she had seen some in the lake on the grounds of her home, but wanted to be sure.

Eathelen had grown into a strange girl. She rarely cried when she was younger, rarely asked for anything, and rarely acted up – and when she did, was rarely caught. She was kind, yes, but very, very bright. Almost _too_ bright for her age – she could speak with a five-year-old vocabulary at age two, and by age nine, she knew more words than many adults and could read almost any book placed in front of her.

Eathelen loved learning; she read everything she touched, and if she didn't understand it she would find a way to, whether that meant a dictionary, asking someone else, or, on one memorable occasion, going straight to the author. She knew all about the theory of Charms, Transfiguration, Defense Against the Dark Arts, and everything else she couldn't yet do since she didn't have a wand. She could read the stars and do level three Ancient Runes and Arithmancy, and level four Potions. She was fantastic with animals as well, because she respected them rather than choosing to believe they were just fuzzy toys or less intelligent than humans. Eathelen, however, certainly had her flaws. She found it hard to focus most of the time; she was slow to trust and independent to a fault. She was stubborn and often too harsh in her judgment and hated being bored to the point that she would risk hurting herself to find _something_ interesting – like climbing on the topmost tower of Potter Mansion or trying to reach a specific bird on the edge of a tree branch.

Eathelen was small for her age, with long fingers and a thin stature. Her face was oval shaped with an upturned button nose, small mouth, eyebrows that matched her long red hair, and large brown eyes. The only thing marring her almost-too-pale body at the moment was the strange mark that stretched from her right cheek down her belly, back, and left arm. Sometimes Eathelen hated it; it made her feel like a freak, and people would stare at her when it was visible. However, she still thought it was very interesting – much more so than her brother's tiny scar, even though they had both received them at the same time: when Voldemort attacked their former home eight years ago.

After a few more moments, Eathelen yawned and glanced at her clock. It was almost six; her parents would be getting up soon. Normally they wouldn't be up until eight or nine, but today was her brother Harry's birthday.

You see, Eathelen's brother was known as the Boy Who Lived, because when he was just a few months old, a dark wizard called Lord Voldemort had tried to kill him thanks to a prophecy that marked Harry as the one who could defeat him. However, when Voldemort had sent the killing curse at Harry, it had rebounded on him and destroyed him, perhaps forever. Now Eathelen's younger brother was famous, and she…

Eathelen was left in the shadows. Her parents loved her, and she knew this, but they never expressed their love for her, not anymore. She got everything she asked for – which was mostly just books – and always had a nearly infinite amount of spending money, but she never got a hug or a kiss. Her mother and father didn't play with her or read to her (not that Eathelen needed them to) or bandage her injuries when she was hurt. Eathelen took care of herself a lot of the time, but she still had a family – she simply didn't consider those she lived with to be anything but distant relations. She loved her family, yes, but it was the kind of love you might have for a kind but faraway aunt or cousin. She would protect them and argue that they were good people, but her parents had changed with Harry's growing fame. They grew power-hungry and loved the attention, and Eathelen disapproved of such behavior.

Alice and Frank Longbottom and their son Neville had been the parents and brother Eathelen had always wanted ever since her emotional neglect became apparent when she was four. Eathelen spent a lot of time at the Longbottom estate – she even had her own room there. It was a large home, but not nearly the scale of the Potter mansion.

Eathelen groaned just thinking of how many people would be here for her brother's birthday. _Everyone_ who was _anyone_ in the Wizarding World always came to the Boy Who Lived's parties.

The girl flopped down on her bed, staring up at the canopy. She had been up since three reading, and was a bit tired. Eathelen kept weird sleeping patterns; she would almost always either stay up very late or wake up very early.

Slowly her eyes closed. Eathelen only intended to sleep for a half-hour or so, but the next thing she knew her mother was knocking on her door and saying, "Wake up, dear," with no feeling in the sentiment, as usual.

Eathelen berated herself for sleeping so long as she looked at the clock; it was almost ten – that was when the guests were to arrive.

She leapt out of bed and pulled open the bookshelf that contained her clothes. She knew she had to dress _very _nicely, and she hated her _very nice _dresses, because her mother always picked out things that were not Eathelen's style. Everything else in her closet, Eathelen had purchased herself, but not those half-dozen dresses for occasions like Harry's parties.

Sighing, Eathelen picked the least-objectionable one – sadly this was the one that showed her mark the most, but so be it.

The dress went just past her knees – apparently the style was known as a cupcake dress. It had short sleeves, and was done in mainly purple and pink, with swirls of purple, blue and pink accenting it. Eathelen added purple boots with sewn flowers decorating the sides and gray silk laces, put a purple ribbon in her hair, and steeled herself mentally before going out her door.

* * *

An hour later, Eathelen was hopelessly bored. She had had her fill of listening in on conversations already – everyone seemed to just be talking about the Boy Who Lived – and it was only too easy to avoid her brother and other…undesirables, because they were always preceded by large numbers of adoring fans.

Even more than her brother, Eathelen wanted to avoid Albus Dumbledore. Though much of the wizarding world worshipped the man, Eathelen did not. He had always disliked her, for some reason, and Eathelen returned the favor. There was something about that man that was just…_wrong._

Grabbing a handful of cauldron cakes, Eathelen dodged witches and wizards as she headed out into the yard. When people did notice her in more than just passing, the most they did was ogle her scar, prompting Eathelen to send them a glare or raised eyebrow until they turned away. No one really spoke to her, and Eathelen was fine with this.

She walked until she deemed the crowds thin enough, only about half a dozen people around, and then found a nice tree to climb up in. Soon, it would be time for the big meal, which would take place in the great dining room with huge tables and towers of food. But for now, perhaps Eathelen could have some peace.

Just as she had settled about ten feet up in her tree, Eathelen heard a rustle, and a high voice chirped, "Hello there!"

"AH!" Eathelen cried, jumping. Her last cauldron cake went flying, and she barely managed to regain her balance before she herself fell.

"Sorry!" the voice said. Eathelen looked up and to her right and saw a girl about her age hanging upside down by her knees from the branch above her. Eathelen felt cross towards her already; she didn't like being startled. The girl reached above her and grabbed a hold of her branch, then unhooked her legs and swung down to sit beside Eathelen.

"Sorry," she said again, "I didn't mean to scare you; I thought you saw me there."

The girl had very, very long blonde hair, large blue eyes, and wore a lopsided smile. Her voice had a strange quality to it; dreamy, but focused at the same time – as if she lived in both a dream world and in the present time without missing a beat in either. She wore a pink dress with metallic stars, moons, suns, and other shapes decorating it, bright orange tights, and short boots decorated with flowers. It was probably the strangest combination Eathelen had ever seen in her life.

She couldn't help but smile.

"It's fine," she said almost reluctantly. Eathelen was slow to forgive at most times, but she already liked this girl and couldn't help it. "I'm Eathelen Potter."

"I'm Luna Lovegood," the other girl replied, shaking Eathelen's hand. "You're Harry Potter's sister, right?"

Eathelen sighed. Here it was – the moment when yet another child her age would try to use her to become friends with her little brother. That's what every wizarding child her age that she had ever met (except Neville) had done.

"Yes, I am." Eathelen said.

Luna wrinkled her nose. "He said my dress hurt his eyes when I said hello to him. No offense…but I think he's a bit of a brat."

Eathelen's eyes lit up.

* * *

Normally she would sit with Neville and his parents at an event such as this, but today Eathelen's best friend was sick with Dragon Pox. She had been expecting the meal to be horrible without them, but now that Luna was here, it was actually fun. The adults at their table ignored them, but this was all good and well with the two girls. Luna explained that her and her father had received the invitation to the party as a thank-you for the article her father did in his newspaper, _The Quibbler_, on the Boy Who Lived. He hadn't been able to make it, but had sent Luna with their present to Harry.

The pile of presents for the Boy Who Lived took up three tables. He got every type of wizarding toy you could imagine, several new brooms, dozens of fine silk cloaks, amulets and jewelry and games and many other things he most likely already had three of. The thing that excited his sister the most, however, was seeing all the books her brother got. While Harry enjoyed stories and children's novels, he hated thick books like _Moby Dick_ and _Les Miserables_ (generally, Muggle books were the only non-magic item deemed appropriate for giving a Pure-Blood) and abhorred non-fiction. That meant that all the books Harry didn't like went to Eathelen.

For once, the party went by too fast for Eathelen's liking. However, she and Luna promised to write and visit often, and Eathelen told Luna she would introduce her to Neville as soon as he was deemed non-contagious; she had a feeling they would get along very well.

Soon enough, the guests were gone, the dishes and house were spelled clean, and Harry's presents were up in his room. A select few of Harry's friends stayed to play Quidditch with him, while their fathers watched with James and the mothers gossiped with Lily in the living room.

Eathelen, thankfully, managed to escape to her room. She didn't like Harry's friends, especially that Ron Weasley; he was annoying and always smelled funny.

She found about a dozen of Harry's birthday books already stacked in her room, probably left by one of the house elves. Eathelen selected something she hadn't read before – _The Hobbit _– and settled down to read for the night.

The next time she looked up, Eathelen found it was almost eleven. Her stomach was growling, so she tiptoed down to the kitchen, mindful of running in to anyone, made a quick snack of kidney beans, asparagus, cilantro, tomatoes, and lemons all lightly cooked (her favorite dish), ate another cauldron cake, and went up to bed.

She yawned as she pulled up her blankets. Eathelen hadn't expected to be so tired after her uncharacteristic nap earlier, but she couldn't help reaching for her book again – she wanted to know what happened with the trolls…

But she was asleep before her hand reached the table.


End file.
